


One Hundred Per Cent

by Socchan



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, DR. SEUSS - Works
Genre: Blanket Permission, Crossover, Folklore, Gen, Humor, Parody, Podfic Available, Storytelling, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 21:18:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Socchan/pseuds/Socchan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katara recounts the tale of the first elephant-bird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Hundred Per Cent

**Author's Note:**

> ...Yeah. I was [enabled](http://memlu.livejournal.com/646542.html?thread=11785614#t11785614).

"Long ago, when -"

     ( _"Why are you doing this again?"  
     "Because Aang wanted to hear a story. Now shut up, Sokka."_)

"Long ago, when the world was still young, all the animals had just one name, and none of them looked like each other. There were fish and otters and crocodiles and cats and bears -"

     ( _"Like Bosco?"  
     "Yes, Aang, exactly like Bosco."_)

"- and platipusses and armadillos, and all sorts of other things that we can't even imagine. There were also elephants and birds.

"Now, one bird in particular was lazy, and selfish, and never wanted to do any of the work, and was always being _sarcastic_ and -"

     ( _"You ...going somewhere with this, sis?"  
     *cough* "No, Sokka. Now, where was I?"_)

"There was one bird who was so lazy that she didn't even want to hatch her own egg. So one day, she tricked a passing elephant into sitting on her egg for her. While he was sitting there and warming it, she flew off to the tropics for a vacation.

"Meanwhile, the poor, abandoned elephant kept sitting on that egg, because he had promised to stay and look after it until the bird got back. And he waited all summer, and all fall, and all winter, but the bird still didn't come back."

     ( _"Isn't that an awfully long time for an egg to go without hatching?"  
     "Just ...listen to the story, Toph."  
     "Fine, fine, I'll be quiet..."_)

"When spring finally came, the elephant was still sitting there, waiting. Because he wouldn't leave the nest, he was captured by some hunters and sold to a circus.

"The circus traveled far and wide, to all four nations, and everywhere they went people would come to stare at the loyal elephant who was sitting on a bird's nest as if it were his own. Eventually, the circus came to a city in the tropics near where the lazy bird was. All the excitement from the circus made the bird curious, so she went to see what was going on.

"Who should she see but the elephant she had left to tend her nest! Before she could do much of anything, though, a loud crack rang out: the egg was beginning to hatch.

"The bird rushed to claim the egg, accusing the faithful elephant of having stolen it; now that the work was done, she was ready to take it back. Forlorn, the elephant began to walk away from the nest he had spent almost a year protecting. It wasn't really his egg, so he felt he had no claim to it.

"The spirits, however, felt differently, and from the scraps of the egg's shell flew the world's first elephant-bird. The elephant-bird knew who its _real_ parent was, regardless of blood, and flew over to the elephant, leaving the lazy bird all alone.

"The spirits saw the good in this, and from that day forward began molding the animals we know today. To this day, elephant-birds are known for their fierce loyalty and faithfulness.

 

"And that's the story of the first elephant-bird," Katara finished.

"Wow," Aang breathed. "What a great story! Thank you, Katara."

Katara blushed and smiled. "You're welcome, Aang. The moral of the story," she continued, looking pointedly at Sokka, "is: the spirits reward the hard working and punish the lazy."

Sokka threw up his hands in defeat. "Fine, you win! I'll pack up the dumb tent."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] One Hundred Per Cent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4102369) by [Hananobira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hananobira/pseuds/Hananobira)




End file.
